Chicago real estate, living and neighborhood perspective

Building Owners Energy Use Disclosure

The Chicago City Council has passed a controversial ordinance requiring landlords to show how much energy their buildings use.

The new law requires the owners of around 3,500 commercial, residential and local government buildings in Chicago to track energy consumption and report the findings to the city, according to a statement from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who supported the measure.

The ordinance passed the City Council today in a 32-17 vote, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago (BOMA), a landlord trade group, opposed the bill. The organization objected to the ordinance’s requirement that a score that measures buildings’ energy use will be made public.

“We feel the obligation under this ordinance to disclose the scores does nothing but create more problems for buildings that will struggle with their scores,” said BOMA Executive Vice President Michael Cornicelli.

Older structures that are not as energy efficient as newer ones could be stigmatized by the scores, hurting their ability to lease to tenants, land financing or find buyers, he said.

Other local commercial property executives supported the bill.

Buildings larger than 250,000 square feet must start reporting energy use by June, according to the mayor’s office. Structures that are between 50,000 and 250,000 square feet will start reporting in June 2015.

Residential buildings that fall within both size ranges will have an extra year to comply with the law.


This post is originally written and published for Realty Evolved. You can view the original article here at realtyevolved.net
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